The park district is getting a new face and a facelift at some facilities next month, but an old issue has reared its head.
At a recent board meeting of the Bainbridge Island Metro Parks and Recreation District, commissioners saluted outgoing executive director Terry Lande and named Dan Hamlin his replacement. It also discussed progress on several construction projects.
However, public comment and board remarks were dominated by conversation around a four-pronged recall attempt of May 2023.
Hamlin has worked for the district since 2006 and has risen through the ranks. Commissioners praised him for the relationships he has built with other public entities, knowledge of the organization and people skills. “It has been a difficult year, and Dan Hamlin has done an exemplary job,” Commissioner Jay Kinney said.
Staff reports from Hamlin, parks superintendent Lydia Rousch and assistant executive director Amy Swenson provided updates on the organization’s various projects. The final design for the trail and boardwalk through Meigs Park off NE Koura Road is in, Rousch said, as is the manual for the Strawberry Hill Park bike track. EarthCorps worked in Hawley Cove Park to remove styrofoam and other pollutants.
Renovations to the Ray Williamson pool are going swimmingly, Hamlin said, as is preparation for the new tennis courts at Sakai Park, which will be done by mid-October. However, the courts may not be coated until mid-spring, due to weather restraints. BI’s tennis community donated $80,000 to the project.
Changes to Sakai were the impetus for BI resident Adam Hunt’s conflict with the board during public comment.
Fed up with years of inaction by the district at Sakai and the pool, Hunt posed a recall attempt of four parks commissioners. He dismissed the recall, but the issue became mired in legal matters when the district sought an award for defense funds from Hunt and appealed to the state Supreme Court to form a precedent protecting public officials from recall efforts based on “frivolous charges or mere insinuations.”
Hunt claimed the board authorized a $200,000 payment to a Seattle-based law firm through park district coffers during the recall attempt and that Kinney, an attorney, had filed a petition with the state Supreme Court. Four people spoke in support of Hunt.
Kinney responded during board remarks. He confirmed that he had filed a petition, and proceeded to explain its precedent. Hunt had advocated for a new Ray Williamson pool, along with a new fieldhouse at Sakai, “at which time the price tag on both those items was thought to be well over $50 million,” Kinney said.
In May, Kinney remembered that Hunt reiterated that if the commissioners moved forward with a new pool and fieldhouse, “then they could talk about the recall going away,” but Kinney responded the board won’t be forced to make a decision it doesn’t want to make.
Hunt withdrew the recall, Kinney said, which led to the motion being dismissed with prejudice. State law is clear that if a recall is not grounded in law, the person behind it can be made to pay attorney’s fees and costs. The district tried to recover those costs, but the court ruled in Hunt’s favor.
“The trial judge did not look at the merits of the recall charges—rather, she looked at Adam Hunt and thought he had a good-faith belief that the commissioners were not doing the job they were elected to do, which is not the legal standard,” Kinney said. The board reached out to the Court of Appeals, but saw the same result.
The district has spent a tremendous amount of staff time and legal fees related to fulfilling public records requests filed by Hunt, Commissioner Dawn Janow said. Hamlin added that those costs are not recoverable.
